PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 40 



are the ocelot ( Ocelot!) , the rattlesnake (Teuhtlacot zankqui), 

 the manatee (Manati), the alligator {Aquetzftalhi) . the arma- 

 dillo (Ayotoc/itli) . the pelican (Ayototl) . 



The figures of plants are numerous, and in most instances, I 

 should judge, recognizable. 



Many other Spaniards published their observations upon Amer- 

 ica in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but it is perhaps 

 not necessary to refer to them even by name. They were, as a 

 rule, travellers, not explorers. Purchas assures us that •• Acosta 

 and Oviedo have best deserved of the studious of Nature — that is, 

 of the knowledge of God in his workes." 



III. 



A personage who must on no account be overlooked in the con- 

 sideration of these early days is Garcilasso de la Vega. Born in 

 Peru in 1530, his father the Spanish governor of Cuzco, his 

 mother a princess of the Inca blood, he boasted of a lineage 

 traced through the line of ancient Peruvian monarchs back to 

 Manco Capac and the Sun. He served as a soldier in Europe 

 and died in Spain about the year 161 5. His " Royal Commen- 

 taries of Peru," constitutes a magnificent contribution to the 

 history of pre-Columbian America, and was said by some au- 

 thorities to have been first written in the Peruvian language.* 



Be this as it may, De la Vega's commentaries, though more 

 valuable to the civil than to the natural historian, will always 

 possess a peculiar interest, not only because the author was the 

 first native of America who wrote concerning its animals and 

 plants, but for the reason that it represents to us the historic and 

 scientific lore of the aboriginal inhabitants of this continent. 



* A Paris edition of 1633 had the following title : Commentaire Royal ou 

 I'Histoire des Yncas, Roys de Peru, &c. Ensemble une description par- 

 ticuliere des Animaux, des Fruits, des Mineraux, des Plantes, &c. , Ecrite 

 en langue Peruvienne et traduit sur la version Espagnole, par Baudouin, 

 Paris, 1633. Amsterdam, 1704 and 1715. See Artedi, Bibliotheca Ichthy- 

 ologies, 1788, p. 65. 



